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Recognizing employees boosts their morale and productivity, but giving workers the
chance to encourage each other can pack an even more powerful punch, consultants say.

“Employee recognition is important to the bottom line because it has an impact on
employee effort and alignment, which in turn impacts profit,” Michael Lee Stallard,
president and co-founder of E Pluribus Partners, a Greenwich, Conn.-based executive
coaching firm, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail Jan. 4.

“Include questions on recognition in your employee engagement survey to hold supervisors
accountable,” Stallard said. If the survey finds some employees who don’t feel recognized,
“match them with a peer mentor who is strong at recognition so the mentor can provide
accountability and encouragement,” he suggested.

At Indianapolis-based software company Formstack, more than 60 percent of the workforce
labors remotely, some in other countries, so employee recognition takes extra effort.
It begins with the people the company chooses to hire, CEO Chris Byers told Bloomberg
BNA Jan. 5. Many companies with a lot of remote employees “hire people who don’t care
about communicating, and are off on their own,” but Formstack “intentionally”
hires people who do care about communication, he said.

Formstack employees can award each other recognition points, which can also be given
out based on “wins” and project completions. In monthly video meetings, those with
the most points—and those who have recognized their peers the most—are rewarded, Byers
said. There’s a special focus on recognizing people who put into practice the company’s
core values, such as “to get to work on solving problems,”
he said. With employees scattered from California to Indiana to Poland, “it’s a great
way to keep them aligned, engaged in their work and wanting to do more of that,” he
said.

Giving End of Praise Good Place to Be

The peer-to-peer aspect of employee recognition is especially crucial, according to
Gary Beckstrand, vice president of Salt Lake City-based O.C. Tanner Institute, the
research arm of employee recognition services provider O.C. Tanner. “Merely the act
of giving the recognition has all the benefits in terms of employee engagement,” he
told Bloomberg BNA Jan. 5, drawing on a survey his company did in October of 3,496
employees in the U.S. and six other countries.

Employees often feel inhibited about recognizing each other’s work, Beckstrand said,
but employers should seek to overcome this reluctance. For example, if employees feel
they should save their recognition “for only the best work,” he said, “it’s best to
address that through the structure” of a recognition program, which should create
ways for workers to celebrate their peers.

“Social recognition is the foundation for creating a more human workplace—one which
fosters a culture of recognition and appreciation while empowering individuals, strengthening
relationships, and providing a clear purpose aligned with achievable goals,” Derek
Irvine, vice president of client strategy and consulting at social recognition provider
Globoforce, told Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 4 e-mail. “A human workplace, in turn, allows
business leaders to make significant progress on top-of-mind issues like retention,
culture, and employee happiness—all while improving the bottom line.” The company
is based in Dublin, Ireland, and Southborough, Mass.

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